Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2014 1:30 pmCurrently I've been building dual FSX/Prepar3D installers for existing Real NZ and Godzone scenery. Nelson and Supercity are released, along with Godzone Hokitika. There's still Southern Lakes and Tauranga/Rotorua to go, along with a lot of Godzone freeware. These will take a bit longer, because they all are scheduled for a proper update.
Those of us who have been following Doug's brilliant West Coast Towns project would know that the impetus for this is a resurgence in cheap, available aerial images for New Zealand, courtesy of LINZ. They are in the process of making this available online, and this week they released the entire North Island. This is of variable resolution and quality, ranging from some 10cm cities and towns, through 25cm urban areas, to 50cm or 1metre rural areas.
Some of this was previously available for a fee, such as the images I'm using for Wellington at the moment.
The South Island will follow in a few months, although I think that the South Island coverage won't be quite as complete. In the meantime I'll be looking at ways to update my older stuff, which relies on much lower resolution images. Hopefully there will be some usable imagery for Wanaka and Tekapo, but first up with new imagery, plus a dual installer, and hopefully both Vector Land Class and Orbx compatibility, will be Rotorua. For a while now I've been giving Rotorua away with some purchases of Tauranga, simply because it was due for an update. I've taken it off the Store now until it is updated. Existing owners will get a free update. For others, this will revert to full price.
I'd like to improve the Tauranga city image at some stage. I've also been looking at some areas for VLC-compatible local updates, similar to Doug's West Coast project. Really, anyone could do this sort of thing, although there are some rather esoteric tools required, so it isn't for the faint-hearted.
I've been trying out a few areas, one example is Raglan, which already has a nice airfield from Mike, which I always though could benefit from an aerial image -- it's an interesting landscape:
When Wellington is finished (don't ask...) I hope to have the pick of the country for the next project. This is shaping up to be a great time for NZ simming, with Prepar3D being developed into the future, and some great resources for scenery developers.
Those of us who have been following Doug's brilliant West Coast Towns project would know that the impetus for this is a resurgence in cheap, available aerial images for New Zealand, courtesy of LINZ. They are in the process of making this available online, and this week they released the entire North Island. This is of variable resolution and quality, ranging from some 10cm cities and towns, through 25cm urban areas, to 50cm or 1metre rural areas.
Some of this was previously available for a fee, such as the images I'm using for Wellington at the moment.
The South Island will follow in a few months, although I think that the South Island coverage won't be quite as complete. In the meantime I'll be looking at ways to update my older stuff, which relies on much lower resolution images. Hopefully there will be some usable imagery for Wanaka and Tekapo, but first up with new imagery, plus a dual installer, and hopefully both Vector Land Class and Orbx compatibility, will be Rotorua. For a while now I've been giving Rotorua away with some purchases of Tauranga, simply because it was due for an update. I've taken it off the Store now until it is updated. Existing owners will get a free update. For others, this will revert to full price.
I'd like to improve the Tauranga city image at some stage. I've also been looking at some areas for VLC-compatible local updates, similar to Doug's West Coast project. Really, anyone could do this sort of thing, although there are some rather esoteric tools required, so it isn't for the faint-hearted.
I've been trying out a few areas, one example is Raglan, which already has a nice airfield from Mike, which I always though could benefit from an aerial image -- it's an interesting landscape:
When Wellington is finished (don't ask...) I hope to have the pick of the country for the next project. This is shaping up to be a great time for NZ simming, with Prepar3D being developed into the future, and some great resources for scenery developers.
Specially when it's uphill all the way 
